The Residence Inn is now complete and open for business. While the new hotel’s grand opening should be next month, it won’t stop anyone from booking a room today.

The ground-floor restaurant is still a work-in-progress and the retail space at the corner of Lenoir and Salisbury Street is looking for a tenant. However, the rooftop bar, named Tenth and Terrace, is open with some pretty nice south and southeasterly views.

So there’s two retail spaces? One that will be a restaurant and a second one that will hopefully be actual retail?? Along with a rooftop bar! Very glad to hear that. For some reason I was under the impression this would be one giant ground floor restaurant.

James and Al, I agree. It’s not bad from three sides, but from the most visible side, the side that shows up in skyline photos, the side that appears in none of the renderings or promotional photos, it gives off a “Reno airport hotel, 1974” vibe. However, since city leaders allowed the Residence Inn’s parent company to build the architectural abomination that is the Marriott in such a prominent place, I can’t fault developers for not spending more money when there are no aesthetic standards to live up to. At this rate, even if Raleigh got a Westin downtown, I would expect it to look less like Weston Charlotte and more like “Comfort Inn – Fargo.”

One and only gripe with this building is that the rooftop bar is facing the wrong direction. There is nothing inspiring about the south facing view, especially knowing literally all of downtown is behind you and blocked by the roof of the hotel.

This spot can’t compete with the views of the Dillon or One Glenwood. That’s where I’ll be.

@Cameron – yeah, I know they’re touting this as “the tallest rooftop bar in Downtown Raleigh!” buuuuuut that distinction will quickly be taken by the rooftop restaurant/bar on the Dillon which, as you stated, will have the far superior view. The One Glenwood rooftop bar is not open to the public, it’s for office tenants of the building (so far that’s what they’re saying, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they changed their minds and went for a public establishment up there).

I’m also hoping the south facing end is covered one day when a developer eventually puts a tower where the parking deck is now. There’s no way that deck will remain as-is for more than another decade.

Any update on the Lundy Groups’ project across from Campbell Law? The founder died and it appears the son has taken over. I wonder if the lenders are now concerned there is a ‘junior’ guy versus dad running the show. Giving $200 million to a guy without a track record is probably a stretch. When you look up the son, he also runs a ‘travel business’ which basically appears to be taking people to the caribbean. Not sure that merits a big fat real estate loan.

Nice Hotel, Just one thing, Yes I’m about to grip, so I’ll get it out the way, I just kinda wish that they had build it 10 more stories taller, You talk about needing more Hotels Downtown, so why not simply build a High Rise Hotel Tower that stands at 20+. Just Hope that they add more taller hotels downtown, but I can wish can’t I.

Jake you bring up an excellent point….all of the ground-up parking decks are great candidates for future tall buildings. The first one that comes to mind is the Sheraton deck. Combine that with say the Two Hannover deck (not sure what’s really called, but the gray and maroon one) and you have a great spot for the coveted 50+ story tower. That block also desperately needs ground floor retail facing Salisbury and also say, convention center. You can move all the new parking deck access to Gale Street, and voila…pedestrian friendly downtown core is extended a little further west (dodging cars coming in out of Salisbury St parking decks has been a pain to me for years)

@Mark – I’ve always assumed that once all the empty surface lots and old buildings that are being torn down are no more, that developers will start going after the decks. Not like we’d be losing decks either – most of the new stuff going up as we speak will have built in decks, and I’m sure any decks that eventually become new developments will also include their own. By the time this happens, hopefully developers will have no choice but to build 40-50 stories AT LEAST.

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